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<strong>IMPORTANT</strong>: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates
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<span class="breadcrumb-node"><code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code></span>
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<a href="ignore-above.html">« <code class="literal">ignore_above</code></a>
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<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h2 class="title">
<a id="ignore-malformed"></a><code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code><a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/edit/7.7/docs/reference/mapping/params/ignore-malformed.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h2>
</div></div></div>
<p>Sometimes you don’t have much control over the data that you receive.  One
user may send a <code class="literal">login</code> field that is a <a class="xref" href="date.html" title="Date datatype"><code class="literal">date</code></a>, and another sends a
<code class="literal">login</code> field that is an email address.</p>
<p>Trying to index the wrong datatype into a field throws an exception by
default, and rejects the whole document.  The <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code> parameter, if
set to <code class="literal">true</code>, allows the exception to be ignored. The malformed field is not
indexed, but other fields in the document are processed normally.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-console">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-console">PUT my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "properties": {
      "number_one": {
        "type": "integer",
        "ignore_malformed": true
      },
      "number_two": {
        "type": "integer"
      }
    }
  }
}

PUT my_index/_doc/1
{
  "text":       "Some text value",
  "number_one": "foo" <a id="CO346-1"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i>
}

PUT my_index/_doc/2
{
  "text":       "Some text value",
  "number_two": "foo" <a id="CO346-2"></a><i class="conum" data-value="2"></i>
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="console_widget" data-snippet="snippets/762.console"></div>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO346-1"><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>This document will have the <code class="literal">text</code> field indexed, but not the <code class="literal">number_one</code> field.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO346-2"><i class="conum" data-value="2"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>This document will be rejected because <code class="literal">number_two</code> does not allow malformed values.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>The <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code> setting is currently supported by the following <a class="xref" href="mapping-types.html" title="Field datatypes">mapping types</a>:</p>
<div class="variablelist">
<dl class="variablelist">
<dt>
<span class="term">
<a class="xref" href="number.html" title="Numeric datatypes">Numeric</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<code class="literal">long</code>, <code class="literal">integer</code>, <code class="literal">short</code>, <code class="literal">byte</code>, <code class="literal">double</code>, <code class="literal">float</code>, <code class="literal">half_float</code>, <code class="literal">scaled_float</code>
</dd>
<dt>
<span class="term">
<a class="xref" href="date.html" title="Date datatype">Date</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<code class="literal">date</code>
</dd>
<dt>
<span class="term">
<a class="xref" href="date_nanos.html" title="Date nanoseconds datatype">Date nanoseconds</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<code class="literal">date_nanos</code>
</dd>
<dt>
<span class="term">
<a class="xref" href="geo-point.html" title="Geo-point datatype">Geo-point</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<code class="literal">geo_point</code> for lat/lon points
</dd>
<dt>
<span class="term">
<a class="xref" href="geo-shape.html" title="Geo-shape datatype">Geo-shape</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<code class="literal">geo_shape</code> for complex shapes like polygons
</dd>
<dt>
<span class="term">
<a class="xref" href="ip.html" title="IP datatype">IP</a>
</span>
</dt>
<dd>
<code class="literal">ip</code> for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<div class="tip admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>The <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code> setting value can be updated on
existing fields using the <a class="xref" href="indices-put-mapping.html" title="Put mapping API">PUT mapping API</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h3 class="title">
<a id="ignore-malformed-setting"></a>Index-level default<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/edit/7.7/docs/reference/mapping/params/ignore-malformed.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h3>
</div></div></div>
<p>The <code class="literal">index.mapping.ignore_malformed</code> setting can be set on the index level to
ignore malformed content globally across all allowed mapping types.
Mapping types that don’t support the setting will ignore it if set on the index level.</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-console">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-console">PUT my_index
{
  "settings": {
    "index.mapping.ignore_malformed": true <a id="CO347-1"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i>
  },
  "mappings": {
    "properties": {
      "number_one": { <a id="CO347-2"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i>
        "type": "byte"
      },
      "number_two": {
        "type": "integer",
        "ignore_malformed": false <a id="CO347-3"></a><i class="conum" data-value="2"></i>
      }
    }
  }
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="console_widget" data-snippet="snippets/763.console"></div>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO347-1"><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></a><a href="#CO347-2"></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>The <code class="literal">number_one</code> field inherits the index-level setting.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO347-3"><i class="conum" data-value="2"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>The <code class="literal">number_two</code> field overrides the index-level setting to turn off <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code>.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>

<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h3 class="title">
<a id="_dealing_with_malformed_fields"></a>Dealing with malformed fields<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/edit/7.7/docs/reference/mapping/params/ignore-malformed.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h3>
</div></div></div>
<p>Malformed fields are silently ignored at indexing time when <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code>
is turned on. Whenever possible it is recommended to keep the number of
documents that have a malformed field contained, or queries on this field will
become meaningless. Elasticsearch makes it easy to check how many documents
have malformed fields by using <code class="literal">exists</code>,<code class="literal">term</code> or <code class="literal">terms</code> queries on the special
<a class="xref" href="mapping-ignored-field.html" title="_ignored field"><code class="literal">_ignored</code></a> field.</p>
</div>

<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h3 class="title">
<a id="json-object-limits"></a>Limits for JSON Objects<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/edit/7.7/docs/reference/mapping/params/ignore-malformed.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h3>
</div></div></div>
<p>You can’t use <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code> with the following datatypes:</p>
<div class="ulist itemizedlist">
<ul class="itemizedlist">
<li class="listitem">
<a class="xref" href="nested.html" title="Nested datatype">Nested datatype</a>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a class="xref" href="object.html" title="Object datatype">Object datatype</a>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a class="xref" href="range.html" title="Range datatypes">Range datatypes</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>You also can’t use <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code> to ignore JSON objects submitted to fields
of the wrong datatype. A JSON object is any data surrounded by curly brackets
<code class="literal">"{}"</code> and includes data mapped to the nested, object, and range datatypes.</p>
<p>If you submit a JSON object to an unsupported field, Elasticsearch will return an error
and reject the entire document regardless of the <code class="literal">ignore_malformed</code> setting.</p>
</div>

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